Thanks in part to the American Heart Association's recommendation that individuals

at high risk for heart disease ask their physicians about omega-3 fish oil supplementation,

fish oil pills have grown into a multi-billion dollar industry.

We now consume more than 100,000 tons of fish oil every year.

But what does the science say?

Are the purported benefits of fish oil supplementation for the prevention and treatment of

heart disease promising?

Or just a fish tail.

The scientific sea change occurred a little over a decade ago,

when a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at all the best randomized clinical trials evaluating the effects of omega-3 fats on lifespan,

cardiac death, sudden death, heart attack,

and stroke. These included studies not only on fish oil supplements, but also studies on

the effects of advising people to eat more oily fish. Overall, the researchers found no protective

benefit for overall mortality, hard disease mortality, sudden cardiac death,

heart attack or stroke. What about for someone who had already had a heart attack

and trying to prevent another one? Still no benefit was found. Since then another

five dozen randomized controlled trials have been compiled and the most extensive systematic

assessment confirmed that increase in the intake of fish fats, EPA and DHA, had little

to no effect on deaths and cardiovascular events.

Longevity experiments on mice found no benefits for aging or lifespan either. Where did we even get this idea

that the omega-3 fats and fish and fish oil supplements were good for us? There was a notion

that Eskimos were protected from heart disease, but that appears to be a complete myth.

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